Sorted
by Isaiah58
Summary: I used to have it sorted." The Pevensie's thoughts on the railway platform at the beginning of Prince Caspian. Movie verse.
1. Sorted

You haven't the foggiest idea, Ed, how much I don't have sorted. I don't know what to do with you, for instance, with your infernal need to be just.

Three on one isn't close to a good reason for you to fight, but you do it anyways, and you don't ask questions until it's finished, because that's what's fair.

I like it, you know, the fighting. I had a dream that Aslan came roaring in to save me, and scared those stupid boys right out of their knickers, and, another, where Lucy used a bit of her cordial to mend me afterward.

That isn't the way it is, though. You are the only lion that comes roaring in, and, when it's over, we're each left to lick our own wounds in sullen silence.

At least, my silence is sullen.

I can't stand it, Ed, the way you won't look at me after you realize, for the hundredth time, what a stupid fight you jumped into on my account.

I can see it break over your face, the crumbling of any tenuous trust you had built back up, and I have to draw into myself. I have to convince myself that I was _right_.

But, being right wouldn't cause you to flinch back the way you do.

You used to fall into my arms. Do you remember that?

We fought, but we fought for a purpose, back to back and side to side, tending each others wounds until Lu or the healers got there.

I can still picture them, the scars that crisscrossed your body. I knew the stories behind each one, watched you get most of them.

But, now, I haven't the foggiest idea what cuts and bruises hide under your shirt.

It's been months since you've let me tend to you like that.

Sometimes, I think it's been months since I wanted to.

Your new mates must hate me, the brother who does nothing but shatter your trust and allow others to bloody your nose.

I'm _supposed_ to be magnificent.

What happened, Ed?

I used to have it sorted.


	2. Magnificent

What is it that you mean for me to do, Peter, when you jump into your fights like that? Do you honestly expect us to just stand there, to watch while they pummel you with theirs fists and their feet?

Susan hates it.

Our gentle queen can't stand the dull thud of bone meeting bone.

In Narnia, that might have been enough to make you stop.

Here though, you brush her aside, the same way she has started to brush aside the rest of us.

We're loosing our sister. She spends too much time looking for the attention, the beauty, she had at home.

But you're too busy getting your head smashed in to notice.

I don't know what to do with you. If all that you want are bruises, brother mine, you don't have to go looking for strangers' fists.

Lucy would be more than willing to have a go at knocking some sense into you.

Our valiant sister admitted to finding a bruise on your arm, back in the days when you still submitted to her healing touch, and wanting to push on it, hard, until you realized what you were doing to yourself, to all of us.

Even now, after all the times you have spurned her efforts, she still tries to comfort you, to calm you down, to protect you from the questions that linger in my gaze.

You used to be able to read me so well. There wasn't anything that I could hide from those piercing blue eyes of yours.

Now, I'm not sure what you see.

Lu could tell you that I was ill over hols, that I threw up for the last time just this morning. For some reason, things that healed in Narnia aren't quite healed here, and my stomach bothers me whenever I start to fret over you and your insatiable need to be right.

Ironic, isn't it, that the wound that caused you so many nights of worry, the wound that almost killed you, is bothering me again.

Only, this time, you haven't even noticed.

I used to think that you must know. I've seen the way you hold your ribs after a wayward boy gets his fist in too close, trying to dull the ache that came first from the end of a giant's club.

I heard you over hols, fighting for air in the dark watches of the night. I would have gone to you, but I was too busy trying to keep my guts from wrenching their way out of my mouth.

I sent Susan instead, but you just brushed her off like you always do.

How can I not jump in to help you, Pete?

The fights may be stupid, but I can't stand to see them hurt you any more than Susan or Lucy can.

I don't know where you got this idea that you can take on the world on your own. Even when you're being a bloody imbecile, you're still my brother.

We used to need each other.

Back to back and side to side.

Do you remember? You used to be magnificent.


	3. Hero

**AN:** Thanks for the reviews guys. I had a much harder time writing the girls for some reason, possibly because I haven't read as much fic centered around them, so, please, let me know if the seem OOC in any way. Con Crit is always welcomed.

Honestly, Peter, must you rush headlong into everything that comes your way? Just because some silly wardrobe removed the crown from your head doesn't mean that you have to act like a little boy again.

The fact that no one expects you to be magnificent by no means gives you leave to act in the same manner as the rabble rousers that fill the halls of your school.

Just because they took away your sword, Heart and Soul, doesn't mean that you have to stop being a hero.

The younger ones need you.

I can see it in their eyes, the way that Edmund watches your mood warily, almost as one would watch a snake that was found sitting where one thought they had left a loyal dog.

Every time that you strike you wound him a little deeper, but our ever loyal brother dares no more than a few snarky comments, the type that used to alert you to his mood as if the two of you shared a brain.

You might as well be aiming your punches at him for all that he bears the weight of your rages.

He's getting older Pete, but not old enough to take your place.

I don't know which hurts Lucy more, the way that you brush her to the side, or how oblivious you are to Edmund's pain.

She's been pulling away from me at school. Or maybe I've been the one doing the pulling away. I never can quite tell.

I saw the rage in her eyes though, when the two of you stepped off the train, Edmund obviously ill, and you did nothing to offer him succor.

We didn't tell Mum. How is one meant to go about explaining things that happened in a place that doesn't quiet exist?

He's a good actor, but he's never been able to fool you, not before.

I wonder if you even heard my words, those nights during hols when I told you how the boys have been pestering me.

There was a time that you would have rushed out then and there, determined that magnificence and justice be visited on the perpetrators of such an offense.

In yet another way, you have changed.

I almost hope that your asthma gets worse, that the wound from the Northern Giants will fester until you have no choice but to accept our brother's help.

You're going back to school, but that doesn't mean that you can escape your troubles.

Something has to change, Dear Heart, or, by the time we finally get back, you are going to be the one caught in Her net.

There are still people here who need you to be a hero.


	4. Understood

**AN:** I repeat. Con Crit greatly welcomed, as I have a hard time keeping the girls in character. The kids are movie verse, but my own take on them. I own nothing, so don't sue me. The odds are good that you'd have to fly half way around the globe before you got any money.

You're still High King, Peter. Why can't you see that?

Edmund needs you. Susan needs you.

I need you.

I'm not a grown up queen anymore, Brother Eldest.

I'm trying to be strong, but I don't have the power here to protect myself. In England, I'm still a little girl.

I don't have my cordial, so you can't stop trying to get yourself wounded enough to need it. You always hated the taste of the fire flower juice anyways.

There are other things here to be fought, other injustices that Edmund would have your help in righting, other cruelties that Susan would have you address. There are other ways that I would have you use your hands.

They used to be so strong, Peter, those hands that hang loosely by your sides now, uncertain what to do now that the fight is over.

Someday, by the grace of the Lion, you will learn that there are weapons more powerful and less deadly than the sword.

With Edmund's help, you could use the pen to turn this place upside down, Brother.

These boys that you use to funnel your anger, would follow you without question if you only gave them something to believe in.

You know that there is more to life than this, more than waking up alone in the dark, when only the moon stands guard, to fight for breath that refuses to come.

I don't know what Susan said to you over hols, on those nights when she would wait by your side until your chest eased, but I wish that you could have said something that would bring her back to us.

You're not the only one that we're loosing, Peter.

Somewhere under that school blazer, blood flows through the veins of a king, but that pulse has grown so weak that even my touch can't draw it out.

I try, but I'm not sure that you feel me any more than a minotaur could feel the soft caress of one of our dryad saplings.

There's something missing in you now.

I'm just a little girl here, and I don't have the power to reach you, not even the strength to beat sense into your head like Edmund always threatened to do, back in the day when you knew him.

Back in the day when you would have done anything to ease the pain that has been tearing through his gut.

Your not the only one who has been awake keeping the stars company and listening for the song of the wind.

What happened to my protector?

You used to understand.


End file.
